This is Sparta... oops, I mean Athens

At the bottom of the Acropolis

Getting down on some Greek grub

Piraues - the Port in Athens

The Parthenon

My neato chess set

After a two hour flight on Aegean airlines Michelle and I landed in Athens, Greece. It was about 11:30 at night and we were exhausted since we had spent the entire day on an excursion to the Burg Kreuzenstein and Stift Klosterneuburg. Upon arriving we realized the Greek writing was impossible for us to read and after a while we found a help desk who told us how to get to our hotel. It turned out to be a good thing that we asked her, because we caught one of the last trains from the airport, and it would have been probably over 100 Euros for a taxi ride. We got to the hotel and found out that the reservation I thought I had made had not gone through. Luckily, they had rooms and crashed almost immediately after stepping in the room.

The next day we headed out to see the Acropolis and adventure. It was absolutely amazing. We went into the museum and hat a great time just seeing the art and the history. Michelle had taken an art history class on Greece and is a Ceramics major, so she was very knowledgeable on the subject of Greek art. After the museum we got some coffee and then lunch. We decided to see the Acropolis the next day because it was cloudy and a little bit chilly. On our way back, we stopped in a tourist shop and the guy charmed us into spending some money. One of the things we purchased was a really cool chess set with Spartans as pawns and Zeus and Hera as the king and queen. We decided to test it out and found a coffee shop near our hotel to play at.
Later that night we saw the Plaka, which is a giant shopping area. It was packed with both people and shops and it was a lot of fun looking through the shop windows at shoes and clothes that we were not even close being able to afford.

The next day we headed out to the Acropolis at about 8 in the morning. On our way we passed a basketball court where we saw about 20 homeless people sleeping on cardboard. It did not look like a slumber party that I wanted to attend. This kind of leads me into the negative aspects of the Athens trip. I think that the sea is beautiful, the food was delicious, and the Acropolis is seriously one of the coolest things I have ever seen, but on the whole I did not like Athens very much. It was filthy, with dirt and trash absolutely covering the roads and sidewalks, often producing an… off-putting smell. Additionally, there were homeless people and stray dogs everywhere. Even at the Parthenon there were stray dogs walking around, begging the tourists for food. The worst part was that I never really felt safe while walking any roads not around a giant tourist attraction. Perhaps this was caused by the fact that I was travelling with only one other person, which was a girl, or by the fact that several people warned me that Athens was dangerous, but it was probably because the city was super crowded and it was such a poor city. The people seemed very nice for the most part, but there were still times while walking that I thought to myself “I wish I had a knife.” At one point we met a redheaded American girl who was studying in Athens. She said that she really liked it there, but she also said that she gets grabbed on the streets by men often. At hearing this, Michelle and I both gave each other a look of concern and the girl followed up that statement by saying “Yeah, the worst is when it’s the cops, because you can’t threaten to call the police on them. You just have to play along and try and get away.” Later Michelle and I talked to each other about how utterly unpleasant that sounded, but I digress…

We arrived at the Acropolis and it was very sunny out. We paid 12 Euros a piece and walked to the top. Along the way we passed two amphitheaters and a bunch of ruins. Eventually we made it to the top and saw the Parthenon. I think that the Parthenon was absolutely remarkable. I will certainly never forget the view; you can see the Aegean Sea and all of Athens from the Acropolis. After taking numerous pictures we headed to the port to see the Aegean Sea and relax before heading back to the Airport.

I think advice I would give to travelers looking to go to Athens, is take either a cruise there, or a guided trip. We really enjoyed all of the touristy things, and the people taking guided tours looked like they were having a wonderful time. Perhaps that way you can avoid the not so great things in Athens and focus on the amazing things.